Coming out of the PIT

Not a mosh pit, a pit of chaos.

We moved into our house in December 2004. We have two storage rooms. The larger of the two has our furnace (and my drums) in it; the smaller of the two has our sump pump (and my journals dating from 1989 - the mid-2000s) in it. Neither storage room has EVER been a model to follow when it comes to 'organization' in my eyes. Sure, there have been times when they looked good but that was usually after a major organization effort due to not being able to find something. Fast-forward to 2017. Even before taking that organization class at Kirkwood, I had the drive to tackle our furnace room in an effort to find a way to make it 'permanently' organized. Knowing that Karen would be on her Women's Weekend Away in Wisconsin this weekend - she left on Friday - I felt it was the right time to do this project. Thus, here is how I worked on it:

• On Friday, when I got home from work, I went to the furnace storage room and started taking our stuff out. I started to figure out how to take down the wood cabinets I had hung in the storage room, but went to bed without getting them down.
• On Saturday, when I got up, a lot happened. 
• I asked Tom, my neighbor, if he could help me with the cabinets. He said "yes" and in the time between asking him to help me and when he actually got over to my house after eating breakfast, I had managed to get the cabinets down. It was almost like asking for someone to help me was a kick in the ass I needed to figure out how to proceed. 
• When Tom came over, we ended up talking in a wide-ranging conversation about life, religion, politics, writing, organizing our stuff, and external hard drive crashes - I have found a kindred spirit in Tom. 
• After Tom left and before the Iowa v. Wisconsin football game at 2:30, I went to Lowe's and purchased 2 x 5 shelf metal shelves. Each shelf set weighed 104 pounds. I assure you I cannot lift 104 pounds for an extended period of time but I managed to get them down the stairs by myself. 
• I also went to Wal-Mart to purchase Speed Stick & a LG Ultra Slim Portable DVD Writer to fulfill the idea I mentioned the other day about ripping CDs to MP3 faster. 
• When I got home from my shopping trip, and with Iowa losing to Wisconsin in the background on TV (they eventually did lose the game, with the defense scoring their only 2 touchdowns!), I began putting the shelves together. I got stuck and sent a picture of what the box said I could do to Matthew, who then offered to come over and help me through my trouble spot, which without Matthew's help, I'd still be staring at the picture on the box so I am indebted to Matthew for his help. Instead of two five shelf structures, he helped me configure the shelves into a 3 shelf and a 2 shelf configuration. 
• I also hooked up the LG Ultra Slim Portable DVD Writer to the Toshiba laptop and set Windows 7 to look at it as the default CD drive. I began ripping CDs with the Toshiba as well as with the Windows 10 tower. 
• I played drums at 5:15 Mass - there were three baptisms!
• After Mass, I went to Falbo's and purchased a double pepperoni / Italian sausage Calzone, which I then ate when I got home.
• After eating, I resumed working on putting our stuff back into the furnace room. As I began putting the stuff back in, it became apparent I needed to have 2 x 5 shelf structures. I had too many existing boxes that putting on a shelf was not the right choice.
• On Sunday, when I got up, I started putting more of our stuff back in the furnace room. 
• Quick update on the CD ripping. I have ripped enough CDs to create 325 files on the Toshiba and enough CDs on the Windows 10 tower to create 170 files. Obviously, the Toshiba & the LG Ultra Slim Portable DVD Writer are kicking ass!
• I took a break to write this post, but I need to get back to it. It's 9:49 AM now and there is still a lot of work to be done prior to Karen returning home later this afternoon.